Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to audio speakers and, more particularly, to wireless portable speaker assemblies which are intended for use with handheld devices, such as smartphones and MP3 players.
Description of the Prior Art
A smartphone is a mobile cellular telephone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone. Smartphones are essentially handheld computers integrated within a cellular telephone. Growth in demand for smartphones boasting powerful processors, abundant memory, larger screens, and open operating systems has outpaced the rest of the mobile phone market for several years. According to a study by ComScore, over 45.5 million people in the United States owned smartphones in 2010 and it is the fastest growing segment of the mobile phone market, which comprised 234 million subscribers in the United States. In 2011, 492.3 million people purchased new smartphones.
The first smartphone, called Simon, was designed by IBM in 1992, released to the public in 1993 and sold by BellSouth. Besides being a mobile phone, it also contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send and receive fax, and games. Customers used a touch-screen to select phone numbers with a finger or create facsimiles and memos with an optional stylus. Text was entered with a unique on-screen “predictive” keyboard.
In 1997 Ericsson released the concept phone GS88—the first device labeled as a smartphone. In 2000 Ericsson released the touchscreen smartphone R380, the first device to use the new Symbian OS. It was followed up by P800 in 2002, the first camera smartphone.
In 2001, Microsoft announced that its Windows CE Pocket PC operating system (OS) would be offered as Microsoft Windows Powered Smartphone 2002. Microsoft originally defined its Windows Smartphone products as lacking a touchscreen and offering a lower screen resolution compared to its sibling Pocket PC devices.
In early 2002, Handspring released the Palm OS Treo smartphone, utilizing a full keyboard that combined wireless web browsing, email, calendar, and contact organizer with mobile third-party applications that could be downloaded or synced with a computer.
Also in 2002, Research In Motion (RIM) released the first BlackBerry, which was the first smartphone optimized for wireless email use. By December 2009, it had achieved a total customer base of 32 million subscribers by December 2009.
In 2007 Nokia launched the Nokia N95, a consumer-oriented smartphone which integrated a wide range of features: GPS, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash, 3G and wi-fi connectivity, and TV-out. In the next few years these features would become standard on high-end smartphones.
Later in 2007, Apple Inc. launched its first iPhone on the AT&T cellular network. It was initially expensive—costing $500 for the cheaper of two models on top of a two year contract. It was one of the first smartphones to be mainly controlled through its touchscreen (the others being the LG Prada and the HTC Touch, which were also released in 2007). Not only was it the first mobile phone to use a multi-touch interface, it also featured it featured a web browser that was vastly superior to those in use by its competitors. Though Steve Jobs publicly stated that the iPhone lacked 3G support due to the immaturity, power usage, and physical size requirements of 3G chipsets at the time, it was rumored that the CDMA2000 Network Providers (Verizon and Sprint) refused to allow the iPhone on their network because Jobs wanted total control of the application store associated with the iPhone. In July 2008, Apple introduced its second generation iPhone which had a lower upfront price and 3G support. It also created the App Store with both free and paid applications. The App Store can deliver smartphone applications developed by third parties directly to the iPhone or iPod Touch over wifi or cellular network without using a PC to download. The App Store has been a huge success for Apple and by April 2010 hosted more than 185,000 applications. The App Store hit three billion application downloads in early January 2010. The iPhone 3GS was the third generation of iPhone designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Introduced on Jun. 8, 2009, it provided faster performance, a camera with higher resolution and video capability, voice control, and support for 7.2 Mbit/s HSDPA downloading. The iPhone 4, which is the fourth generation iPhone, is particularly marketed for video calling, consumption of media such as books and periodicals, movies, music, and games, and for general web and e-mail access. At this writing, an updated version of the iPhone 4, that is rumored to have an 8-megapixel camera, will be released on Oct. 5, 2011 as the iPhone 5.
Android, a cross platform operating system for smartphones, was released in 2008. Android is an Open Source platform backed by Google, along with major hardware and software developers (such as Intel, HTC, ARM, Motorola and Samsung, to name a few), that form the Open Handset Alliance. The first phone to use the Android OS was the HTC Dream, branded for distribution by T-Mobile as the G1. The software suite included on the phone consists of integration with Google's proprietary applications, such as Maps, Calendar, and Gmail, and a full HTML web browser. Third-party applications (apps) are available via the Android Market, including both free and paid apps. As of the third quarter of 2010, 43.6 percent of the smartphones sold in the U.S. used the Android OS, up 11 percent from the previous quarter and up from only 2 percent the previous year. Apple came in second with 23 percent, up 1 percent, followed by RIM in third place, which declined from 28 percent to 22 percent.
For the past several years, smartphones running Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system have languished in the marketplace, capturing less than 7 percent of the market for smartphones in mid-2011. With the release at the end of October 2010 of the Windows Phone 7 operating system, Microsoft hopes to revitalize the market for smartphones designed for Microsoft operating systems. Windows Phone 7 is an elegant operating system that is very different from the application-focused iOS and Android operating systems. Windows Phone 7 provides active and configurable interface elements, called tiles, that update on the fly with real information, allowing users to place the tiles that interest them most wherever they choose on their Start screens. Facebook photos, music and contacts are pulled into the phone and distributed appropriately across Hubs. It also brings together many of Microsoft's popular offerings from other platforms, including Xbox, Zune, Office and Bing.
As of the first quarter of 2012, smartphones running the Android operating system garnered 64 percent of new smartphone sales; smartphones from Apple managed a 19 percent market share; smartphones running the Symbian operating system owned 6 percent of the market; RIM smartphones had a 5 percent market share; and smartphones running the Bada and Windows 7 Phone operating systems each had a 3 percent share.
Most high-end smartphones, whether they use operating systems from Apple, Google, RIM or Microsoft, now have front and rear cameras, with autofocus lenses and 8 megapixel front-camera sensors. With specifications like these, smartphones have become acceptable substitutes for dedicated digital cameras. At the end of 2011, nearly 30 percent of all photographs were taken by smartphones. This represents a significant increase from 17% in 2010. For many people, smartphones have replaced point-and-shoot cameras.
There are two characteristics common to all smartphones. Firstly, they have voracious appetites for power that typically deplete battery charge in less than 12 hours—even when operating in standby mode. Worse yet, if a smart phone is operating in a transmitting mode, whether via cellular telephony or connection to a 3G or 4G network, battery life will be shortened precipitously. In fact, a web browsing session can reduce battery life to less than an hour. Secondly, they have internal speakers which provide neither high-fidelity sound nor sufficient volume for group use as a speaker phone. Furthermore, even at moderate volume levels, sound quality suffers from distortion. The problem has been exacerbated by Apple's trendy insistence on style over function. As Apple mobile products have become thinner, there is less space for audio speakers. Apple's faithful must rely on headphones for high-fidelity sound. This is true for not only Apple's iPhone products, but its iPad tablet computers, as well.
During the past two and a half (this is being written in October, 2012), tablet computers have taken the world by storm. A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, having an integrated flat touch screen that is primarily operated by touching the screen, that is larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant. It typically uses an onscreen virtual keyboard or a digital pen rather than a physical keyboard. In 2001, Microsoft Corporation introduced the Microsoft Tablet PC, which was a touch-screen X86 computer intended for business field work. However, the device failed to achieve widespread adoption not only because of its relatively high price, but also because usability problems that made it unsuitable for work outside of its limited intended purpose. In April 2010 Apple Inc. released the iPad®, a tablet computer with an emphasis on media consumption. The shift in purpose, together with increased usability, battery life, simplicity, lower weight and cost, and overall quality with respect to previous tablet computers, was perceived as defining a new class of consumer device that has continued to shape the commercial market for tablet computers, which have come to be referred to as, simply, tablets. Apple has since released the iPad 2 and the iPad 3 (it does not actually bear the 3 moniker).
The Apple iPad uses the iOS operating system, which is a commercial derivative of FreeBSD, a free Unix-like operating system that descended from AT&T UNIX. Within months of release of the original iPad tablet, tablet computers were released by other companies which used the Linux-based Google Android operating system. These early Android-based tablets generally lacked the quality, performance and polish of the Apple iPad. In early 2011, Samsung released the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer. Though the subject of generally favorable reviews, it and other new Android tablets have not been able to slow the Apple juggernaut, which has benefitted from more polished applications, impeccable industrial design, an outstanding marketing program, and a fan base that possesses a seemingly irrational and unbridled exuberance for all things Apple. The introduction of the thinner, more elegant, and slightly more capable Apple iPad 2 in March 2011 has only increased the fervor of Apple faithful. Following Steve Job's dramatic announcement of the product, Apple sold 300,000 the day of its release.
Near the end of September 2011, Jeff Bezos, the Chairman and CEO of Amazon.com, announced a touch-screen tablet called the Kindle Fire. At $199, it costs $300 less than Apple's entry-level iPad 2, thereby putting it within reach of many more users than Apple's $499 (and up) device. On the other hand, it's smaller, runs a forked version of Android, has only 8 GB of flash memory storage, doesn't have a camera, runs a subset of the tiny number of Android apps that “work” on other Android tablets, and is really more of a tablet wrapper for Amazon's services than it is a media tablet. Nevertheless, Amazon booked an estimated 95,000 preorders for the Kindle Fire on its first sales day. During each of the six subsequent days, an additional 20,000 were sold to reach a total of 215,000 as of October 5th. That number is quite remarkable, given that Bezos, unlike Jobs, has not been accorded rock star status.
Though tablet computers typically have much longer battery life, significantly higher resolution displays, and generally greater functionality than smartphones, audiophiles consider the output from their internal speakers to be nothing short of pathetic. The problem is not that powerful, high-fidelity audio speakers are unavailable, but rather that, in their quest to make tablet computers as thin and light as possible (the Apple iPad 2 is only 8.8 mm thick), manufacturers have left no room for powerful, high-fidelity speakers. With respect to the latest and greatest tablets, it is a maxim that high-fidelity sound is available only through the use of quality headphones or auxiliary speakers.
Sensing a need for greatly improved audio performance for both smartphones and tablet computers, as well as enhanced battery life for smartphones, innumerable companies are scrambling to fill the void. Many speaker assemblies having Bluetooth connectivity are available for smartphones and tablet computers. There is even a speaker assembly available that can charge a smartphone as long as the speaker assembly is connected to a 110-volt AC power outlet. In that device, the AC voltage is converted by an AC-DC converter to a secondary voltage that can charge a 5-volt lithium-ion battery. When the device is unplugged from the AC outlet, the charging capability is lost. Battery-powered laptop or notebook computers can typically charge a handheld device, such as a smartphone, from a USB port, even when the laptop computer is not connected to 120-volt AC line power via its AC-DC power supply. However, it should be kept in mind that a laptop computer is a full-featured digital computer rather than an accessory, such as a speaker assembly, which has no CPU, no RAM, and no data storage.